On January 15, 2025, Richard Legay will speak as part of the research colloquium of the Center for French Studies at the University of Freiburg. His lecture will focus on the colonial past and memory policies in France and Germany:
In recent years, several European countries have seen a change in their official practices relating to the memory of their colonial past in Africa. This change, which is taking place after a long period of resistance on the part of the various states concerned, is taking many forms and is being implemented by a variety of actors. It can take the form, as in the Netherlands, of official apologies by the prime minister and then the king, or, as in Berlin, of the renaming of certain streets, which until then had celebrated supporters of colonialism, in favour of personalities who were its victims or who resisted it. In France, President Macron's ambitious but unfulfilled promise in Ouagadougou in 2017 to return to Africa its artefacts stolen during the colonial period within the next 5 years has opened the door to much discussion. And it is this question of the restitution of African cultural heritage that is undoubtedly one of the most important challenges of our time in terms of how our societies deal with their colonial past.
On this point, France and Germany stand out from their European neighbours in terms of the extent of their collaboration. On the one hand, we can note the recent launch of a Franco-German fund for provenance research, which we hope will make an active contribution to the restitution policies of both countries. On the other hand, the Franco-German couple has distinguished itself by its efforts at European level, particularly during the commemorations of the centenary of the First World War between 2014 and 2018. So there is a long tradition of cooperation on remembrance issues, which continues to this day.
However, it is important to note that beyond the common front sometimes displayed - as in the case of the search for sources - Germany and France have very different policies and ways of working on the subject of remembrance (for example, German federalism versus French centralism), particularly when it comes to the colonial past. So, although both countries are embracing a new paradigm of remembrance, embodied in the issue of the restitution of African cultural heritage, there are many tensions that need to be explored in depth.
The lecture will be held in French.
Please register in advance with the seminar coordinator, Dr Anna Sennefelder: anna.sennefelder [at] mkw.uni-freiburg.de